Yosho's Tales...
Author: Daferge
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Disclaimer: Tenchi Muyo! is a copyright of AIC/Pioneer Ltd.
All respective characters are property of their original owners. All original characters and ideas are the property of the author...
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Yosho's Tales...
Chapter 25... A knight's tale - part.07...
( Castle Battlements... )
The castle's lord stood on the battlement looking out upon the dimly lite field beyond the castle's moat and entrance draw bridge in the light of a full moon...
He recalled a similar night, many years before...
After the death of the Great King and almost every high born Lord in the kingdom, it had been just about every person for them selves...
You did what ever you had to to survive and there were many things that he'd done in those first few months...
In fact, this stone castle had been a local Royal castle, a small one, held by just a few armed men...
But the knight and those who followed him, men, women and children, needed some where they could rest, a place where they could be reasonable safe...
What he and his few surviving warriors did to take it was some thing that would haunt him to end of his days...
It was another day before the priestess would allow the others, women and children, into the castle...
In the following days, as they tried to heal, the darkness seem to cover the land beyond the walls and some even wondered if any of it made a difference...
Then, out of no where, a miracle accrued and changed every thing...
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( The past... )
It had been a night with a full moon, the air cold and fresh...
After lowering the bridge and opening the gate, the night guard had taken his time stepping out onto the bridge to check the other side of the moat...
It was some thing he had been doing each morning since coming to the castle several weeks before...
There were a couple of 'guards' on the wall above him, covering him as best they could...
Actually just a couple of young boys in armour with bows...
They looked a lot more impressive in the dim light...
He smiled, they would do, he'd been even younger when he'd left home and began to learn to fight...
He was now one of the few surviving men-at-arms and at the moment, the only one able to get around, the wounds under his armor still healing...
The knight they all followed wasn't in much better condition, but if he could manage, then they could manage...
Within the walls there was a feeling of safety, but there was also a closed in feeling to some one use to being out side...
So far the night had been like every other night since they had come here...
He took a slow, deep breath of the cool night air and suddenly froze...
He'd heard some one cough and there shouldn't be any one else there...
Looking around, he discovered a small figure curled up against the castle wall, next to the gate and drawbridge, on a small ledge...
It took him a while to recover, there was no way she could have gotten on that ledge with the drawbridge up, it was impossible...
But there she was and as he looked closely, the bundle in her arms moved...
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A low voice from above asked if something was the matter, but he just waved it off, pointing into the night...
They were there to keep an eye out and watch his back while the bridge was down...
If some thing happen, the gate was to be barred and the drawbridge raised, quickly, no matter if he was inside or not...
Not only his safety, but that of ALL those in the castle, family members and others, were in their hands...
He looked into the shadows across the bridge and heard the sounds of small animals, insects making noise, a good sign...
Sort of like with his wife, as long as she was talking every thing was fine, it was when she stopped that things usually tended to happen...
Slowly and gently, he bent down and picked the female up, it surprised him as to how light she was...
Standing, he took a last look around and then carried her back inside the castle...
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Just inside the gate he passed the old man who operated the bridge...
His eyes widened and he started to say some thing, but the man-at-arms shook his head...
Sighing, the old man nodded his head towards the gate and bridge...
He might be old, but he could close and bar the gate...
It also didn't take much strength to turn the crank that raised and lowered the draw bridge...
Getting a smile and a nod, he sighed again as he moved to closed the gate and raised the bridge...
He would find out what had happen later, it wasn't like he was going any where...
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Carrying his bundle with great care, the man-at-arms crossed the small courtyard to the doors of the castle's keep...
The inner, multi story stone structure that the outer walls and moat protected, the heart of the castle...
Another young boy, not even in his teens, stood by the door, in armour too large for him and trying not to drop the long pike in his hand...
Seeing the man-at-arms return, he'd gotten up off the stone to the side of the door and return to his post...
A guard wasn't really needed, but it gave the boy experience at standing guard and getting use to armour...
He was trying to look like a guard when he saw that the man-at-arms was carrying some thing...
As he started to advance, he saw the man-at-arms shake his head and nod to the Keep's doors...
Dropping the pike, he quickly opened the door and stood to the side...
His eyes widened as he saw what was being carried, but said nothing...
As the man-at-arms made his way into the great hall, he could feel the boy staring at him...
Soon he heard the sound of the door closing, a loud sound that echoed in a quiet hall...
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The 'Great Hall' looked any thing but great...
Here and there on the far walls were a few torches, lite to allow those within to see their way...
For as far as the eye could see, there were shapeless mounds scattered about on the floor, only a foot or so apart...
Each mound, one or more survivors, trying to make it through another chilly night...
Carefully, the man-at-arms made his way through the mounds of bodies...
Those wrapped in furs were females and young children, those in the thinner blankets, were males and the older children...
Even their 'lord' use a blanket and was even known to be one of the last to eat...
He'd been there when the elderly priestess of Tsunami had made their lord eat an extra meal, to keep up his strength...
Weak or dead, he would be of little or no help to them...
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It took a while for him to make his way across the Great Hall to the far wall where there was a raised platform...
At one end was a tent-like structure that had been created as a place for the elderly priestess to stay...
At the other end, a set of old damaged armour that was mounted carefully on a wooden stand...
It was the Great King's armour, recovered from the battlefield where he had fallen...
The lord, with just a few men, had been protecting Tsunami's priestess and only got there long after it was all over...
He and a handful of serfs, both males and females, had spent several days, burying the dead, in large pits, usually close to where they died...
He had carefully removed the armour from his body, before they buried him with the others, Lords and warriors...
The Priestess had said it would give the survivors hope, as if he was still watching over them...
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As there was a light within the tent, he assumed that the priestess was awake...
He smiled, she always seem to know when she would be needed...
The man-at-arms carefully climbed the stone stairs onto the platform, to made his way to the tent...
Even as he mounted the platform and approach a large table there, the priestess and their Lord exited the tent...
Setting his bundles carefully on the table, the priestess had smiled at him and quickly examined the girl and her bundle, a baby boy...
Sighing, she smiled, a tear in her eye and she spoke to the knight...
" And now the future can begin... "
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( The present... )
Opening his eyes, the Lord found himself back in the present and he had to smile, the young girl had taken the old priestess place and her little brother was now one of his youngest squires...
The Lord had not entirely believed his young visitor from the day before, but some thing had told him that the young male knew more than he was saying...
The young male had just brought word that a number of the nearby lords were plotting against him, some thing not really surprising in these times...
For assaulting another lord's castle was not only extremely dangerous and wasteful, it was also very stupid...
Any one doing it would not only be throwing away some very valuable and hard to replace resources, but would be opening themselves up to be attacked also...
He had know these lords most of his life and he knew that it was their distrust of each other that had helped to prevent any major conflicts in the recent past...
But now something had changed and three of them had actually joined together to attack him and take his lands...
What had been the hardest to believe had been that they had a PLAN...
Men who couldn't agree on who sat where at a dinner table, had a PLAN...
THAT had been the part that he found the hardest to believe...
Then earlier this morning...
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( Earlier... )
In the middle of a moon lite night, a serf from a nearby village, to the east, appeared at the main gate riding a mule...
As all large 4-legged animal were considered valuable, the mule was being used by that village's headman...
He brought word that a small band or group of thugs had appeared the day before, taken over control of their village and were running wild...
This was not the first time that roaming bands of thugs had done this, usually they worked off some steam and then moved on...
Only really stupid thugs harmed any one or caused too much damage, the last thing they wanted or needed was knights and people with weapons after them...
As the village was within the area the castle's Lord claimed and protected, the village headman ask that he send help...
So, the Lord arranged for a knight on horse, two men-at-arms on mules and a number of archers on foot to be sent as the his reply...
The village was within a couple hour's walk and the archers were all young healthy males, use to moving on foot...
With the serf along, the band left the castle on it's long march back...
And things began to settle back down...
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( Some time later... )
How ever, it wasn't to be...
For a worker, from the rock Quarry to the west, appeared on foot, with word that outlaws were attacking the quarry and demanding every thing of value...
The workers and boss had made it to the small nearby stockade, where a man-at-arms and several archers were keeping the outlaws at bay, but they wasn't sure how long, as the outlaws had archers too...
The Lord knew his resources would be stretched, but another knight on horse, two more men-at-arms on mules and several more archers on foot were dispatched...
The Lord was beginning to realize that the young male could have been correct...
As it was, any more request for help would have to be on their own, as a good portion of his forces were already gone...
But no more request came...
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( The present... )
The Lord looked at the man-at-arms standing nearby and considered what that title really meant...
Before the Great King's death, along with most of the High Lords, titles had different meanings...
An Archer was an adult male who had spent years practicing with a bow, until he could hit the center of a target with his eyes closed...
A man-at-arms was a male who had devoted a good number of years to learning the use of weapons and wore armour as if it was a second skin...
And Knights were experienced men-at-arms who were experience horsemen, as well as a good deal of experience in battle...
experience about not only what to do, but how to lead others in battle...
Oh how that had changed in a single day...
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His 'knights' were, in fact, the few real men-at-arms that had been with him when all this had begun and his 'men-at-arms' were any young boys tall enough to wear armour and carry a weapon of some kind...
There had been very few real men-at-arms left, those that had been lucky enough not to be at the final battle...
And with the death of those they were serving, they were able to choose who they wanted to serve...
A number had even chosen to serve under him, showing up at the drawbridge, alone or with their families...
As it was, he had just about every young boy and old male strong enough to stand, wearing armour and doing some thing, many just walking the battlements...
His 'archers' were those who were too small to fit into armour or use weapons, but could shoot a bow, which just about any male could do as soon as he learn to walk...
There had been a couple of experienced 'Archers' with him and they were in charge of training the young ones how to work together and how to be 'archers'...
His only good thought was that ALL the other Lords had the same problems...
It had been one of the females with the young boy who had suggested he allow some of the young girls to help also...
A good number of them knew how to use a bow and there were even a number of female who could wear armour and not just young girls...
Many male serfs had been forced into the service of those who proclaimed themselves to be 'lords'...
Thus leaving large numbers of families were without male providers...
It hadn't been uncommon to see the fields tended by females, usually dressed like a male...
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Some Lords, like himself, had actually been a warrior, a few other Knights and even some Men-at-arms...
Others had been well-to-do landowners or merchants who had taken the title so they could put together small forces to defend themselves and what they had...
Any one who happen to have some thing of value or the power to take what they wanted became Lords...
He'd even heard that one had even been an 'outlaw', before he'd started being called " My Lord!... "...
There were also the families of the lords who had died with the King, where some had suddenly found a young boy as the new Lord...
Although he knew of a couple of places where " Her Ladyship... " had managed to keep control, most families where only females were left, had been absorbed by other 'Lords'...
If they were lucky...
He had even taken in a number of them, usually with nothing but what they had on their backs...
The remains of noble families, forces to flee for their lives as NEW Lords came to claim what little they had left...
In fact, that was how he'd met his Lady, the sister of a fallen Lord, who'd been forced to flee with other females and children left in her care...
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( the Past... )
The new 'Lord' was out with a few others, scouting their new domain, learning about the surrounding and making contact with other survivors...
One of the party had been making marking on a large piece of dried skin to record what they had found, a very rough map...
Their indication that some thing was wrong was when an arrow nearly took his head off...
A very upset female, dresser in male clothes and pointing the next arrow straight at him, caught his attention...
It seem that the noise all their armour, weapons and such made, had scared off the only deer that the 'archer' had seen in days...
And it would have fed the small party she was with for several days...
The Lord apologized and had one of his men bring up the deer that they had killed earlier, secured to the back of a mule...
Only then did the female unstrung her arrow...
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She then led them back to the small encampment of women and children, guarded by an old man with a sword...
As soon as he saw their condition he sent one of his men back to the castle for a cart and mules...
He learned that they had been forced to flee her brother's small Keep when a large force of men had approached...
They'd watched from the nearby woods as the keep was sacked for every thing of value before being set ablaze...
They had been wandering for days and now weren't even sure where they were...
He suggested they return with them, to their 'camp' and they had accepted...
When the cart arrived, the young and weak were put in it and they slowly proceeded back to 'camp'...
It was only when they left the woods near the castle that they saw what their true destination was, a castle...
It was also then that the female discovered that she'd threatened it's 'Lord'...
No one spoke as they entered the castle, the first real safety they'd had in days...
The presence of a priestess of Tsunami went far in helping them settle in...
Several months later, the Lord took the female 'archer' as his Lady, with Tsunami's blessing...
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( The present... )
He leaned over and got the man-at-arms' attention...
When they looked his way he nodded his head and tapped the back of his neck...
Reaching up with their free hand, the man-at-arms touched the back of their neck and froze...
There was a good deal of hair hanging from under their helmet...
The Lord smiled and reached over, pushing the hair back up under the helmet...
He held up a finger as the woman-at-arms started to say some thing, smiled and shook his head...
" It's alright... Just check every once in a while... "
Nodding her head, she resumed her 'guard' post...
However he couldn't help checking out the rest of her...
A low voice caused him to smile ever so slightly..
" See any thing you like?... My Lord... "
He knew better than to answer that one...
Even if his 'Lady' did look good in armour...
It was her very soft whisper that caused him to really smile...
" Later!... "
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Before he could come up with a reply, one of his men-at-arms approached and whispered in his ear...
Sighing, he reached over and took his Lady's hand and squeezed it...
He then followed his man-at-arms over to a section of the battlement wall, away from the others...
He'd only said 2 words, but they meant a lot...
" They're here... "
In the shadows, the man-at-arms pointed into the darkness, to the field beyond the moat...
As his eyes adjusted, he could begin to see what the man-at-arms had seen...
Movement at the far side of the field and the edge of the woods on ether side, trying to stay in the shadows...
It seem that unwanted company had shown up on their doorstep...
He continued to watch as his man went off to alert the others...
A figure stepped out of the shadows nearby and joined him, looking out at the darkened field...
His unusual young male guest...
Some how he wasn't surprised...
" They say, that waiting's the hardest part... "
The Lord raised an eyebrow at the strange remark...
" Personally, I've always wondered who 'They' were?... "
The Lord couldn't help it, he smiled and then began to chuckle...
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To be continued...
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Please feel free to comment and review for any errors...
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